Mathiowetz is low bidder for Hwy. 52 project

A notoriously dangerous intersection in the Highway 52 corridor between Rochester and the Twin Cities is closer to getting a fix.

On Wednesday, Sleepy Eye-based Mathiowetz Construction emerged as the apparent low bidder for a long-anticipated interchange project that is expected to improve safety at Highway 52 and County Road 9 in Goodhue County.

Greg Isakson, Goodhue County’s engineer and public works director, said the intersection about 6 1/2-miles south of Cannon Falls has seen a number of fatal accidents, including two accidents in a two-week span last October that resulted in three deaths.

The existing layout forces county road drivers to cross busy Highway 52 without an overpass.

“People started to say, ‘Enough is enough,’ ” Isakson said. “We have to do something out there.”

Isakson said the Highway 52-County Road 9 interchange is one of several corridor upgrades in the works or under construction.

Crews are about halfway finished with a $14.3 million interchange project at Highway 52 and County Road 24 near Cannon Falls, and construction is underway on a $4.75 million extension of County Road 24 in the area.

All three of those projects should be done by the end of next year.

“We are taking care of two of our worst intersections at the same time,” Isakson said. “Safety-wise, a lot of people will have been saved by these two projects we are doing on Highway 52.”

The upcoming project has been in the works since at least 2000, when the Minnesota Department of Transportation and county officials conducted a Highway 52 study, which ultimately determined that the highway should be converted to a freeway with no at-grade crossings.

Since that time, other big projects in the corridor have been completed, including the $232 million Roc 52 design-build project and the $34.3 million Elk Run interchange in the small town of Pine Island.

The controversial Pine Island project was quicker to receive funding, even though critics panned it as an interchange to nowhere.

In June, a key funding piece for the Highway 52-County Road 9 project finally came through in the form of a $5.6 million Safety and Mobility grant, which comes from state bonding, MnDOT project manager Heather Lukes said.

Also in June, the project received a $250,000 grant from the Corridor Investment Management Systems program, which benefits highway projects that improve “quality of life, environmental health or economic benefits,” according to MnDOT.

Other state and local sources round out the funding.

Before the funding for the overpass project became available, MnDOT proposed a more modest safety fix, known as a “reduced conflict intersection,” which would eliminate right-angle crashes.

Lukes said the intersection saw 84 crashes between 2000 and 2011 including four fatal accidents.

“It was one of the most dangerous rural intersections in Minnesota,” Lukes said.

Lukes said the work was bid as a design-build project, because design-build lends itself to quicker project delivery. Traditional design probably would have taken about a year, she said.

“With design-build, we were able to reduce that time frame,” Lukes added. “It was very important for MnDOT to see this construction next year, because 9 and 52 is such a dangerous intersection.”

The total project cost, including acquisition of right of way, is just under $7 million. MnDOT is still in the process of acquiring right of way for the project. Construction is scheduled to begin in May and wrap up in November, Lukes said.